


No Cities to Love

by ViolaCesario



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-13 15:07:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9129523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ViolaCesario/pseuds/ViolaCesario
Summary: "The trick to any good story, Varric once told Hawke, was figuring out how it started."Sometimes the dwarf went for broad strokes, the big picture, then narrowed in on finer details. Kirkwall, the City of Chains, rising from the Waking Sea, a mountain of stone and steel and centuries of accumulated blood. The Hanged Man, a bar in Lowtown whose picture is in the dictionary under 'dive,' its armored namesake swaying upside-down in the briny ocean breeze. People filing in through the entrance, into a room whose floorboards would smell of beer and bad decisions until the place burned down by chance or malice. In one corner, a bar; in another, a fireplace. And in the corner farthest from the door, a stage--just large enough to accommodate a drum kit, a keyboard, and a quartet of women who have to keep their thrashing in check so as not to elbow each other while they play."





	1. Price Tag

**Author's Note:**

> Soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWc6knXULsw

I was lured by the devil  
I was lured by the cause  
I was lured by the fear  
That all we had was lost  
I was blind by the money  
I was numb from the greed  
I'll take God when I'm ready  
I'll choose sin till I leave

\--Sleater-Kinney, “Price Tag”

 

The trick to any good story, Varric once told Hawke, was figuring out how it started.

Sometimes the dwarf went for broad strokes, the big picture, then narrowed in on finer details. Kirkwall, the City of Chains, rising from the Waking Sea, a mountain of stone and steel and centuries of accumulated blood. The Hanged Man, a bar in Lowtown whose picture is in the dictionary under “dive,” its armored namesake swaying upside-down in the briny ocean breeze. People filing in through the entrance, into a room whose floorboards would smell of beer and bad decisions until the place burned down by chance or malice. In one corner, a bar; in another, a fireplace. And in the corner farthest from the door, a stage--just large enough to accommodate a drum kit, a keyboard, and a quartet of women who have to keep their thrashing in check so as not to elbow each other while they play.

Sometimes Varric began with small details and expanded from there. The sharp tap of drumsticks to set rhythm. The wicked curl of red lips leaning toward a microphone. The bright flare of a guitar chord, the answering call of the bass, and the brilliant burst of sound as all the instruments come together just before the singer bellows a challenge to the crowd. The waitress bobbing her head in time to the music, the bartender tapping the countertop and smiling, the patrons, well… Some were there to talk, others to drink, but either way they found themselves listening to the girl with the short black hair and leather jacket, her cherry red instrument gleaming in the dim light.

Varric didn't like to start too early, so he wouldn't get into Hawke’s age-old argument with her mom about wasting time on music and hanging out at disreputable places. He'd breeze past the part where she walked from her shitty apartment to the bar, wishing she hadn't given up smoking, wondering if she could make enough cash tonight to get the soles of her boots fixed. He'd skip her greeting Merrill and Aveline, helping Isabela carry the pieces of her drum kit downstairs from her room, setting up pedals and plugging into the house amps and making sure the levels didn't sound like pure shit. That stuff was all prologue.

He couldn't start too late, either, or nobody would know who anyone was, or why they should care about this fight on an empty street, that thrown bottle of wine, how a slamming door could rattle someone right down to their soul. How there were lots of ways to be naked, and surprisingly few of them were any fun at all.

In this case, he might consider it interesting to start with an ending.

The last note of a song, made longer by liberal application of a sustain pedal. Hawke hunches over her guitar, sweating, letting her frenzied energy drain away as her ears buzz with the relative quiet. Applause breaks out, a mixture of polite and enthusiastic, riddled with cheers and whistles and a few glasses pounded against wooden tables. Behind her, the click of Isabela laying down her drumsticks, a happy sigh from Merrill as she turns off her keyboard, and the rustle of Aveline’s jean jacket as she unplugs her bass.

Hawke looks up at the crowd, already back to their chatting and drinking, as if she and her band were never there. As if their music were no more noteworthy than the fake torches lining the walls, or the garbage scattered in the streets outside. She wonders, not for the first time, if her mother is right about this being a waste of her life after all. Surely she should be doing something more productive.

But she knows that’s not how this works, that she’d be back to scrawling lyrics on bar napkins and the backs of old receipts within a few days. The tunes that turn up in her mind always haunt her like restless spirits until she channels them through her calloused fingers. She’d make music even if nobody in the blighted city gave a shit about her for the rest of her miserable, Maker-forsaken life.

And then, across the room, she sees him.

It's the big green eyes that catch her first. She hasn’t seen green like that since Merrill last dragged her to Sundermount for a picnic. No, not even Sundermount was that green--Lothering, more like, and that’s a memory like a sharp corner to a bruise.

Hair next, because it’s silver-white, which looks strangely appropriate even though he can’t be much older than her. It’s not an aesthetic she’d be bold enough to try out, but she’s seen weirder. It also seems to match the white tattoos trailing down his neck and arms, which stand out starkly against his tan skin.

But the thing that grabs her attention the most is that, unlike everyone else in the bar, he’s staring right at her. Like he’s dying of thirst in a desert and she’s a storm cloud. Like he’s a starving wolf and she’s a lamb.

But she isn’t a lamb--she's a Hawke, so she raises an eyebrow and grins at him, and he’s the one who looks away first.

Maybe it won’t be a wasted night after all, she thinks, and starts to pack her things.

#

Because life can’t be easy--easy is boring, Varric would say, nobody really wants easy--the mystery elf is gone when Hawke goes looking for him. She tries to drink away her disappointment, but Corff only comps them two drinks for free when they play, either pints of ale or single shots of the rotgut he uses in mixers. Hawke could pay for something else, but her cut for the night is so close to boot-fixing money that she doesn’t want to spend it. 

Aveline refuses to drink because she has to work in the morning, so she gives her shots to Isabela, who also ends up with one of Merrill’s pints after an “honest mistake” that Merrill takes graciously, as she does most things. Hawke’s sister Bethany is there, all soft smiles, with the cute blond boy she works with at the clinic--Anders, that was his name--but they leave early so he can walk her home alone. Not that they put it so indelicately, of course, though naturally Isabela does, and poor Bethany turns pink as a sunset.

Varric emerges from his second-floor den of capitalist iniquity and points at Hawke, gesturing for her to join him. She weaves around tables and drunk patrons, avoiding that one weird guy who always wanders around muttering to himself, and climbs the stairs to see what her self-proclaimed band manager has to say. 

He takes a seat at the head of the big table he uses for meetings, entertaining and rearranging piles of thick contracts. Hawke sits next to him, leaning back and crossing her legs at the ankles. 

“Good show tonight,” Varric says, but that’s politeness, formalities. Not that he doesn’t mean it, of course.

“If you’ve got any more compliments in your back pocket, I’ll take them,” Hawke replies, grinning. “But you could have come down and flattered me at the bar, so I’m guessing you have something to discuss privately.”

“Maybe I didn’t want to get stuck buying you a round again. You’re right, though. I’ve got something you might be interested in.”

“If it’s torn trousers, I’ll take them, but those pantaloons you gave me last week were more hole than fabric.”

“So was the guy wearing them at the time. But I digress.” He leans forward, steepling his fingers. “You guys have been playing here for what, a year?”

“Give or take. You’d probably know better than I would.”

“How often do people ask if you have an album they can buy?”

Hawke stares up at the decorative weapons Varric keeps as souvenirs on the wall behind him. “It’s been known to happen,” she says. “But we can’t even afford to stock a merch table.” Or buy boots, she thinks sullenly.

“I might be able to help with that.” He smiles, reaching for his mug of ale. “My brother Bartrand is starting a new label. Deep Roads Productions, he’s calling it, because he’s a pompous ass.”

“Catchy.”

“Like lice. Anyway, he’s willing to give you enough of an advance to cover costs for album recording, mixing, even merch for your nonexistent table.”

Hawke laughs. “You don’t look like a demon, Varric, but you’re certainly tempting me like one. What does Bartrand get out of this?”

“You’ll be testing out all his fancy new equipment, for one. You also have to pay him back whatever you don’t earn out from the advance. Plus he gets a big slice of whatever pie you do end up selling.”

“And you?”

“A smaller slice.” He grins, sips his drink. “You know me; I like pie.”

“You certainly have slices from enough pies to keep you fed through Satinalia.” She looks at his piles of papers and wonders how he keeps any of it straight in his head. “So that’s it, then: record an album, make some shirts, sell everything that isn’t bolted down?”

“There’s one other thing.”

“I’d be disappointed if there weren’t.”

“You guys have to pay for your own tour to promote the album.”

Hawke sighs, sliding down in the chair so she can stare up at the ceiling. “Well, that was a lovely dream while it lasted,” she says. “If you’re wondering who put a whole bottle of rum on your tab in about ten minutes, it was me. Will be. Whatever.” As if they’d have been able to sell an album anyway. Or merch. They could barely entertain a few drunks.

Varric puts his mug back on the table and wags a finger at her. “Don’t get all pessimistic--it’s not a good look on you. I already ran some numbers and made a few calls, and I figure we can put together something that pretty much pays for itself. All you have to do is record a kickass album and I’ll handle the rest.”

Hope is the herald of disappointment, and Hawke hasn’t gotten where she is by expecting anything in her life to be easy or good. It certainly hasn’t been so far.

“Let me think about it,” she tells Varric. He raises his glass in reply.

#

Hawke decides not to tell the others about Varric’s offer, because she can’t quite believe it’s real herself yet. As foolish as it is, she feels like if she says it out loud, to another person, somehow it will all turn out to be a huge misunderstanding. Not to mention the many ways it could fall apart, fail spectacularly, even if it proceeds as Varric plans. She doesn’t want anyone else to bear the burden of disappointment, not yet.

She rejoins her friends, and if she looks more pensive than usual, they don’t ask why. 

If it were another night, they might head up to Varric’s room, or Isabela’s, or over to Merrill’s place to play a little longer, drink a little more. But between Hawke’s mood and Aveline’s schedule, after an hour they mutually agree to call it and go home. Aveline drags Isabela upstairs, despite being called “prude” and “prig” and variations thereof, waving at Hawke and Merrill as they leave.

Merrill is dwarfed by the keyboard strapped to her small back; Hawke offers to carry it, but settles for walking her friend home when the offer is declined. They head for the alienage, Hawke keeping a wary eye out while Merrill chatters about the new antique she’s restoring. It’s a warm night, warmer with her jacket on, the kind of weather that highlights the delicate Lowtown bouquet of foundry smoke and pissed-in corners.

"I don't know why, but I always feel very nervous being out here at night," Merrill says.

“It’s the thrill of wondering whether chokedamp or muggers will get to you first,” Hawke says.

Merrill laughs, then stops, her eyes wide. “Oh dear. That’s true though, isn’t it?”

“Look on the bright side: at least you can smell the muggers coming.”

She doesn’t.

Maybe it’s the alcohol dulling her awareness, but they’re halfway across the alienage before Hawke notices the shadows, the voices in the corner behind the vhenadahl. A half-dozen Sharps Highwaymen stand in a loose circle around-- 

Well, she thinks. If it isn’t the adorable mystery elf. Black t-shirt, tight jeans, and those silvery tattoos, which look like they’re glowing under the light of the two moons. Maker’s balls, they must have taken ages to ink.

Hawke gently puts her guitar case and gig bag on the ground and stalks over.

“I didn’t realize there was a party,” she says. “And us, showing up uninvited? So improper!”

A couple of them snicker, but the tall one glares at her. “Andraste’s tits, it's a fucking Fereldan. Move along, dog-licker, and maybe we won't kick your ass from here to Denerim.”

Hawke isn't from Denerim anymore than every Marcher is from Kirkwall, but there's no point in arguing with assholes who see her as a nameless refugee instead of a person.

“That sounds like an awful lot of kicking,” she says. “Maybe you can get me as far as Highever and then we’ll trade off?”

The elf looks pained, so she winks at him. Unsurprisingly, this does not endear her to the Highwaymen.

“Someone shut her up,” the tall one says. “And her knife-ear friend, too, if she moves.”

“Ah, dear.” Merrill thrusts her hands into her pockets. “Why doesn't anyone ever want to be nice to us?”

Hawke’s hands close into fists. “At least it’s not boring,” she calls over her shoulder. “Let’s make this quick.”

The one to her right moves to grab her and she takes him down with a pair of punches and a knee to the groin. The rest stare at her in shock as their comrade sinks to the ground, groaning.

Hawke has just enough time to smirk and then the others are on her. She weathers her share of hits while giving back twice as many to whichever enemy is convenient, twisting out of half-assed attempts at grappling and using the thugs as shields against each other. The elf is fighting as well, she notices, but she only pays him enough attention to ensure he doesn’t get in her way. Behind her, one of the Highwaymen screams and falls--Merrill must have used her taser, Hawke thinks. Hopefully the girl won’t be foolish enough to try pepper spray with Hawke and elf in the middle of the fray.

The tall boy retreats after a vicious gut punch, wheezing. His hand slips into his jacket and comes back out gripping a knife.

“Well, shit,” Hawke says. “Who brings a knife to a fistfight?”

She takes a slash to the arm before getting him into a wrist lock that forces him to drop the weapon. An elbow to the face and he’s down as well, to join four of his fellows in a whining pile of blood and regret.

That leaves one unaccounted for. Hawke looks up in time to see him racing toward the stairs, carrying her guitar. Her smirk is replaced by a snarl as she takes off after him. 

Her guitar. Her sodding guitar. It’s the only thing of her father’s she still owns, the only thing they didn’t have to sell to get out of Ferelden. She can’t record an album without her guitar, can’t go on tour--Varric’s offer, gone up in foundry smoke. If this little shit gets away...

She’s unencumbered, faster than he is from desperation and cold fury. He only manages to reach the middle landing of the stairs out of the alienage before she’s on top of him. 

Hawke grabs the guitar case from behind, spins the boy around and headbutts him. She feels his nose break from the impact of her forehead, sees a flash of starlight and darkness before her vision resumes its regular shapes and colors. Both his hands fly to his face and she steps back, now cradling her instrument like a child. She shifts her grip so she can hold the case by its handle, leaving her with a free hand that closes once again into a fist.

“Maker, please,” the boy says, blood pouring down his face.

Hawke stops. “Next time, ask the Maker for help sooner,” she says. “Maybe he’ll give you the sense to go home and take up a nicer hobby.” She gestures for the boy to leave.

He stumbles past her, up the steps, still holding his nose. She glares down at his friends, who are starting to collect themselves. Merrill has her pepper spray out, and her phone. She hovers a few paces away from the other Highwaymen as if daring them to provoke her further.

Mystery elf stands at the foot of the stairs; he came after her, then, when she ran. He’s looking at her again, not quite like before, at the bar. Less hungry and more--she’s not sure. Astonished? Wary?

Whatever trance they’re in staring at each other, Hawke breaks by spitting blood against the wall.

“It seems you have won the day,” the elf says. “Well done.” His voice is like a cigarette and she wants to smoke it to the filter.

“I was just getting warmed up,” she replies.

“Hawke!” Merrill shouts from below. “I’ve called Aveline. The guard will be here soon, and she said she’d come by once Isabela stopped trying to sneak downstairs to drink more. Should we maybe wait inside? It’s an awful mess, but I do have tea. And bandages.”

Hawke groans; it was bad enough she was friends with Aveline, given the general opinion of guards in Lowtown, but to have them show up after what she’d done to those Highwaymen was asking for trouble. The adrenaline starts to fade, and Hawke is suddenly extremely aware of every bruise and scrape, from the dull hammering in her forehead to the stinging slice across her arm. She’s marginally more aware of the elf still looking at her, and she wonders what he sees with those big green eyes.

“Tea and bandages sound wonderful,” Hawke says finally. “Got enough for three?”

#

His name is Fenris.

Hawke doesn’t get much more out of him because she has to take care of her injuries. Normally Merrill would be helping her, but Hawke aims her friend’s ministrations at their guest, who has his own wounds. By the time Hawke is finished washing up and bandaging the seeping cut on her arm--it didn’t reach the muscle, thankfully, so no stitches from Bethany in her future--Fenris is seated at Merrill’s kitchen table with a mug of tea and a stony expression.

“Oh, there you are,” Merrill says as Hawke picks her way through piles of antiques in various stages of restoration and takes a seat. “I was just telling Fenris how lucky it is we found him when we did.”

“Terribly lucky,” Hawke says, accepting her own mug of tea. “Certainly an improvement over my luck earlier today, which involved bare feet and mabari shit.”

Fenris snorts and looks away. Was that a laugh, Hawke wonders? He isn’t smiling, but she thinks the corner of his mouth might have twitched.

“Do you live in the alienage as well?” Merrill asks.

“No,” Fenris replies, a bit harshly to Hawke’s ear.

“Out for a stroll through scenic Lowtown in the dead of night,” she says. “Nothing strange about that.”

“I was to meet someone,” he says. “They never came.”

“Oh dear! You don’t think the Highwaymen got to them first?” Merrill asks.

“I suspect it is the other way around,” he says sourly.

He doesn’t seem inclined to talk about it, and Merrill looks like she’s going to pry in her usual indelicate way, so Hawke changes the subject.

“I live just up the street, myself,” she says. “It’s quite luxurious: two bedrooms for only four people and a mabari.” It’s no smaller than the farm in Lothering, certainly, and that held five people and the dog. She doesn’t mention the family home in the better part of town that her uncle sold to pay off his debts years before they showed up penniless on his doorstep. That means something to her mother, but to her, it’s beyond the realm of any ambition she might have.

“Ah,” says Fenris. “I had assumed you lived here.” He glances at the two women, then looks down at his tea.

“With me?” Merrill asks. “Oh, Elgar’nan, no! I’ve no room for another person in here, not with all my projects. Hawke would have to sleep in the shower, standing up, and that’s hardly comfortable.”

“I believe he thought we were a couple, Merrill,” Hawke says.

“A couple of what?”

“A couple of people who like to have sex with each other.”

“Oh!” Merrill giggles. Fenris clears his throat, and Hawke could swear he is simultaneously blushing and suppressing a smile.

Someone knocks. Fenris is on his feet so fast it startles Hawke into rising as well. His hands are clenched into fists, muscles tense; Hawke is reminded of how her mabari Bann looks when a stranger comes to the door.

“That must be Donnic,” Merrill says. “Aveline said he was in Lowtown tonight.”

Fenris sits again, in the same way Bann does when he’s wary of the visitor--still, but alert, ready to move at the slightest provocation.

It’s Donnic, as predicted, in the dark grey uniform of the city guard, and he flashes them a close-mouthed smile before removing his hat and stepping inside. “Merrill, hello,” he says, his voice gentle. “Aveline told me some of Sharp’s people assaulted you? Were you injured?”

“I’m all right, but Hawke--”

“Is also fine,” Hawke says quickly. “You know how Aveline is. Worry, worry, worry. Sorry she bothered you over nothing.”

Aveline may still be optimistic enough--or naive enough--to think guards in the alienage are reasonable, especially when a crime has been committed, and against her friends no less. But Donnic grew up in Lowtown; he sees Hawke’s words for what they are.

“It’s no bother at all,” he says. “I owed you two a favor.”

Hawke furrows her brow, then remembers how she and Aveline pulled him out of a nasty fight with some fake guards in Hightown a few weeks earlier. She shrugs at him, half-smiling. 

“I could make you some tea, if you’d like?” Merrill asks. “Only I’ll have to wash a mug first because I’ve used them all up. It will only take a minute.”

Donnic puts his hat back on and tips it. “Thank you, but I’d best be getting back to my patrol.” He stiffens, then, and Hawke realizes he’s noticed Fenris, who had been doing his best impression of a statue.

“What’s he doing here?” Donnic asks.

“Having tea,” Hawke replies. “It’s only bags, but Merrill boils the water with love.”

Donnic hesitates. “If you say so,” he says finally. “Good night, then.” The look he shoots Fenris as he leaves would lance a boil, and she’s sure he’ll give Aveline an earful of something that will get around to Hawke eventually. But it can’t be too serious, she thinks, or Donnic would have arrested Fenris on the spot, or at least refused to let him stay in Merrill’s apartment.

Yawning, Hawke stretches and takes a last sip of her tea. “I should be going as well,” she says. “And I’m sure Fenris needs to get back to his tour of Lowtown while the air is still fresh as a country road.”

“Country roads aren’t very fresh, you know,” Merrill says. “Halla leavings aren’t so bad, but horses--”

“I did live on a farm, Merrill,” Hawke says.

“Oh, so you did. I always forget.”

Fenris stands, still stiff from Donnic’s arrival. “Thank you for the tea,” he says.

Merrill smiles. “Thank you for, um, hitting people I suppose. Oh!” She claps her hands together. “You should come watch our band play at the Hanged Man on Friday. We're not bad, and I could let you have one of my free drinks.”

Hawke doesn't mention that she saw Fenris at the bar earlier, and he doesn't say anything either. He simply nods, says goodnight and follows Hawke to the door.

#

The square is empty but for the two of them. The Highwaymen are gone; the guards are gone. A cat in heat yowls under a nearby window, and in the distance someone plays a radio a bit too loudly for the middle of the night, something with a beat Hawke could dance to if she weren’t carrying her guitar and bag.

“So,” Hawke says, as nonchalantly as she can manage. “There’s only one way out of here, which means you’re stuck with me for a few more minutes. Unless I take a really long time to tie my boot, and you make a quick escape while I’m not looking.”

He doesn’t answer. He’s staring at her stuff, she realizes, lips pressed together as if he’s struggling with something he can’t give voice to. She wonders. Perhaps one day she’ll know him well enough to ask. Or perhaps this is where their paths separate, their lives each returning to whatever they were before tonight.

“I’ll be all right,” she says. “I’ve walked home alone a hundred times and only broken one rib. And my least favorite toe.”

He snorts, but his lips are no longer a hard line. “Where did you learn to fight?” he asks.

“Oh, you know how it is,” she says. “My little brother Carver ran off to join the army, and my mother cried until I said I’d go look after him. As if we’d even end up in the same unit.” She begins to walk, slowly, to see if he’ll follow. He does.

“You were in the army?”

“In Ferelden, yes.”

“Ferelden?” He falls silent, and she thinks: here it comes. “Were you at--”

“Yes.” She tries to forget, but she knows she’ll carry the weight of Ostagar with her until she’s in the cold ground, or ash on the wind. “My brother was there as well, and Aveline--the bassist, red hair? I’m afraid we were all dishonorably discharged, for fleeing from the chaos instead of dying like proper soldiers.” Like Aveline’s husband. Like the few friends she’d made among her bunkmates. Like the fucking king, who should have known better than to parade his ass around on the front lines for a photo op, as if he were invincible.

They reach the stairs and climb. “What about you?” she asks. “Any tragic life stories you’d like to share, or should I be pointing out famous Lowtown landmarks so this can be a proper tour?” She gestures ahead of them. “For example, over here we have a dead-end that people are always throwing trash into. Empty bottles, bits of rope, that kind of thing.”

He pauses as they reach the top step. “I am… from Tevinter,” he says. “I do not intend to return.”

She knows a little about Tevinter, and none of it is good. He probably wants to talk about it as much as she wants to talk about Ostagar.

“Are you looking for work?” she asks instead. “I know a few places hiring, if you don’t already have something lined up.”

He stops, and so does she, shifting her grip on her bag and resting her guitar case on the top of her foot. A strand of hair keeps falling into her face, but with her hands full she can only try to blow it away.

“First you fight on my behalf, then you and your friend serve me tea and shield me from the guard, and now you offer me work,” he says. “You are being excessively helpful to a stranger.”

“Helping people and punching people are what I’m best at,” she replies. “Doesn’t pay very well, though.”

His green eyes meet hers, his face hard. “Why do it?”

It’s a bigger question than he realizes. Why did she help Aveline get out of Ferelden? Why did she help Merrill move out after arguing with her family? Why did she help Isabela fight off a bunch of thugs the woman had hustled? Why did she spend half her time working, and half her time doing favors for people who couldn’t manage on their own? Because they all needed the help. Fenris, too, but with him it was more than that.

Because you looked at me like I was incredible, she thinks. I want to know why, and I want you to look at me that way again.

“Somebody has to,” she says, half-smiling. “Besides, every friend was a stranger once. Like how every cake was just flour and eggs before they got tossed in a bowl together. And beaten, I suppose, which you and I certainly were tonight, so we’re already halfway there.”

His face softens and he chuckles; it sounds rusty from disuse. “Am I the flour or egg in this scenario?” he asks.

“You're the butter, and I'm the sugar, on account of my being incredibly sweet.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Fine, I'm the rum then. This is a rum cake now. A rum cake of friendship. Better?”

“Better.” He smiles, and she can feel a song stirring inside her, waiting to be teased out.

They reach the steps to Gamlen’s apartment--she's lived here for over a year but she'll never think of it as theirs, or hers, only ever her uncle’s. Bann will be waiting for her inside, and Bethany, no doubt already asleep, arm stretched over her face the same way it has since she was a baby. Gamlen might still be out, but her mother will be in her own bed, asleep as well because she has to be up early to beat the traffic into Hightown, as she does every morning.

Hawke, well. She keeps her own hours.

“And here we have the final stop on our tour,” Hawke says. “A lovely example of classical Lowtown architecture, made of sturdy stone and covered in grime, as is typical of the style.” She raises an eyebrow. “I hope you're not far from here yourself. Those Highwaymen might be back soon with friends, and I'd hate for them to catch you alone.”

He scowls. “I am… not nearby, no.”

There goes my boot-fixing money, she thinks. “Let me call you a ride,” she says, pulling out her phone.

“There is no need.”

Hawke grins at him. “Consider it a favor to me. Otherwise I'll worry, and I won't be able to get my proper beauty sleep.”

“No,” he says firmly.

The rejection stings a little, but she shrugs it off. “Sleep is overrated. And beauty.” She starts up the stairs, tossing him a quick smile to show there's no hard feelings. “See you around, Fenris.”

“Wait.”

That look again, like he's wrestling with himself and he doesn't know whether he wants to win or lose. “If you give me your phone number, I will message you,” he says. “To tell you I've arrived safely.”

“Deal,” she says, and rattles off the digits. He taps them into his phone, then pauses.

“Is Hawke your real name?” he asks.

“It's my last name,” she says. “It's what everyone calls me, anyway. Used to drive my brother crazy. ‘I'm a Hawke, too,’ he'd say, until Varric started calling him ‘Junior.’”

“What is your first name?”

She tells him, and he snorts.

“Hawke suits you better,” he says.

She certainly enjoys hearing him say it. Maker’s balls, that voice.

“Be safe,” she says. “And don't forget: Merrill owes you a drink.”

He smiles, only a little, like a single ray of moonlight on a rainy night, and she carries that inside with her, through a cold shower and all the way to her bed.

#

An hour later, her phone buzzes, and she tastes the pillow with her smile.


	2. Fangless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It’s as if love is a room full of places, and things, and people, and she’s quietly shifting the room’s contents to make space for him when the time comes. Sometimes he looks at her the way he did that first night, and she thinks, maybe he’s doing the same thing.
> 
> "Other times, she says something that makes him frown and fall silent, or touches him and he flinches away with a scowl, and she wonders why he suffers her company at all."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kV5ezv1yg0c

Sharp teeth in a broken jaw  
Hungry, but I'll hunger on  
And the hours I waste  
While I fake a grace  
That no one will ever see  
And I practice tests  
And a usefulness  
That I no longer need

\--Sleater-Kinney, “Fangless”

 

Hawke would be lying if she said she never imagined what it would be like to be famous.

It isn’t something she devotes much of her time and attention to, between all the little jobs she takes to make ends meet; delivering packages, mostly, for people (like Varric) who don’t trust the usual channels and are in a mighty hurry. She’s one of the only couriers who’ll go to Darktown, though she refuses to take illegal--well, unethical work. She also has a strange knack for finding lost things and returning them to their owners, which tends to yield more gratitude than gold. She likes seeing their surprise, though, that moment of shock giving way to pleasure, or the kind of pain that precedes closure and healing.

But sometimes when she’s drinking after a gig, or lying awake in bed listening to Bethany (and Bann) snore, or fighting the uphill climb to Hightown on her bike as her legs burn--sometimes she thinks, maybe I won’t have to do this forever. Maybe someday I’ll have money, and fans, and my own apartment, and money. She’ll give it to Varric and he’ll figure out how to make it multiply like magic, and her mother will stop nagging her to get a “real” job. Maybe Hawke could even afford a lawyer to untangle the mess Uncle Gamlen had made of their family’s mythical estate.

Right. And maybe she’d walk bodily into the Fade and get eaten by a giant spider.

And yet, with every passing day, her dreams feel marginally less outrageous. 

#

Varric takes her to the new studio space in Hightown, introduces her to his brother Bartrand, to the father and son tech duo--Bodahn and Sandal, they’re called--who’ll be recording her band’s album. She stands in a dimly lit room, in front of an enormous board covered in knobs and sliders and tiny winking lights. Behind a thick pane of glass, beyond a heavy door, the vocal booth awaits her, simultaneously a prison and a portal to another world. Inside lies only a wooden stool and a microphone; it’s otherwise empty, waiting for her to fill the space with the sound of her voice.

There is an awful lot of waiting.

It’s a slow process, tedious, partly because they’re testing new equipment. Sandal is obsessed with tinkering and tweaking and upgrading, and his father indulges him, insisting the boy is a genius with electronics and that it will all be worth the effort when he’s finished.

But there are also four band members, each with their own lives and responsibilities that make it a challenge to juggle jobs, recording, rehearsals and their regular shows at the Hanged Man. Hawke has her courier work, which usually picks up between noon and six, but she also takes on food deliveries for extra coin until about midnight. Aveline only works four days a week, but her shifts are ten hours long, and when she’s off-duty she gets paid to hang around a movie theater in Lowtown to discourage naughty behavior. Merrill scours flea markets for new antiques to restore, then holes up in her apartment, completely losing track of time unless someone is around to pick her up and haul her off to the studio. Isabela is arguably the worst: she’s always up to some scheme that has her disappearing without warning, which makes it almost impossible to schedule time for her to lay down the drum tracks.

Hawke wishes the damn Rivaini had done her recording first; she’s grown to hate the steady, monotonous sound of the click track keeping time as she tries to play her guitar with the same passion and energy she brings to the stage. It’s harder than she ever would have imagined, and every time she does it, she has a renewed respect for the kind of studio musician who gets paid to show up and do just that, perfectly and in as few takes as possible.

Hawke is nowhere near perfect. Every time Bodahn says, “Let’s try that one again, shall we?” she resists the urge to throw her stool at the window.

Bartrand wants them to finish quickly, while Varric insists they make sure the album is good quality, however long that takes. It’s a constant source of bickering between the two brothers, on top of the other conflicts that have built up between them over a lifetime. Hawke hates to be fueling that fire, for all that Varric tells her not to worry about it.

#

A month passes, then another. Hawke can’t remember the last time she was able to sit down and play for the sheer pleasure of it, to let her fingers explore her guitar until they unearthed a tune like some fragment of a buried treasure. She’s barely touched the notebook where she usually writes and rewrites her lyrics, except to hastily scrawl a phrase here, an image there, only for the rest of the page to mock her with its blankness.

Two things keep Hawke going. One is a wild bramble of emotions rooted in stubbornness, determination, and love. She wants to prove she can do this, that the music she and her friends scrape from the marrow of their weary bones is bold and beautiful and worth sharing. That she isn’t a waste, a disappointment, a failure buried by the weight of her mother’s expectations.

The other thing, oddly enough, is Fenris.

They talk. They text. He comes to all of her shows after that first one. Sometimes he sits at the end of the bar closest to the wall, and she has to practically turn her back to the room to see him. Sometimes he's at a table right in the center, and he raises a glass to her between songs, like a salute. Sometimes he's hiding in a dark corner, or up on the staircase to the second floor, and she only finds him after a few minutes of searching for his silver-white hair.

He was in a fight in Hightown the day they met, she learns from Aveline, and Donnic had to break it up. Something about a condo that didn't belong to him, from which he'd evidently driven a group of people less than peacefully. No one wanted to file charges for some reason, and Donnic wasn't about to push them to give him more paperwork to deal with, so the guard left well enough alone. The owner of the condo had yet to materialize, but as far as he knew, Fenris was still there.

Hawke doesn't ask Fenris about it, and he doesn't tell her. But sometimes she delivers food to that building, and wonders which unit is his.

She's not a big believer in Love with a capital L. She loves her family, her friends, her dog despite his tendency to roll in garbage and bark at invisible nugs. She loves sitting on the docks and watching the Waking Sea turn to fiery gold at sunset. She loves the smell of the markets in Lowtown just before it rains, and just after, before the heat ruins it again. She loves hot rolls and cold ale. Hiking in the mountains, or along the Wounded Coast. Wandering around Lowtown with Aveline when she’s on patrol. Surprising Merrill with lunch when the elf has forgotten to eat. Playing Wicked Grace or diamondback with Isabela and Varric and laughing as they cheat each other mercilessly. Watching old movies with Bethany and her mother while eating cheap Nevarran takeout. 

She doesn’t think she’s ever really been in love, romantic love, the kind her parents had before her father died. There was one boy back in Lothering that she almost... but he was a shit to Bethany and Hawke never forgave him for it. No one else ever got close enough, whether because of something she did or said, or something she was or wasn’t; it was hard to tell these things, for her at least. She’d wanted, she’d lusted, but love?

It’s not that she loves Fenris--she hasn’t known him long enough, she thinks, knows little about his past because personal questions often put him on edge. And love at first sight is the kind of nonsense Varric sticks in his romance serials. But the more time she spends with him, the more she feels a tiny frisson of pleasure when she sees his name on her phone, or hears him chuckle at one of her terrible jokes, or brushes against his arm as he walks her home from a gig. 

It’s as if love is a room full of places, and things, and people, and she’s quietly shifting the room’s contents to make space for him when the time comes. Sometimes he looks at her the way he did that first night, and she thinks, maybe he’s doing the same thing.

Other times, she says something that makes him frown and fall silent, or touches him and he flinches away with a scowl, and she wonders why he suffers her company at all.

#

Isabela is the first to notice a problem--or at least, the first to saunter up to the table at the Hanged Man after a show, throw herself into Hawke’s lap and say, “You’re strung tighter than a corset at the Rose. You need to get laid, or you need to jam. Either way, my apartment is available.”

Hawke laughs. “It has been a while,” she says.

“For which?”

“Aveline, want to jam?” Hawke asks, skirting the question while deliberately not looking at Fenris, who opted to sit across from her tonight.

“I shouldn't,” Aveline replies, but her tone suggests she wants to be convinced.

Isabela rolls her eyes. “Don't be such a prune.”

“Oh, we haven't played for fun in so long!” Merrill exclaims. “Come on, Aveline, if only for a few songs. Surely that won't be too much trouble.”

“You can sleep during your patrol,” Hawke adds. “I'll wager your feet know where they're going without any help from your brain at this point.”

Aveline finishes her ale, gently setting the pint glass on the table. “One hour, and that’s all,” she says. “I get little enough sleep as it is.”

Merrill cheers, and Isabela extricates herself from Hawke’s lap to punch the guard on the shoulder. Even Aveline cracks a smile.

Hawke does look at Fenris now. He's staring into his drink like there's a message at the bottom and he's trying to decipher it. His brow is furrowed, lips slightly pursed.

“Fenris?” Hawke asks. “Are you coming, or do you need to…?” She's not sure what he might need to do, but she doesn't want him to feel obligated to watch them any more than he already has.

“Am I required to play something?” he asks.

“Not if you don't want to.” She smiles, puzzled. “I didn't even know you could.”

She can tell by the way he scowls that this was the wrong thing to say, but before she can crack a joke, deflect, Isabela interjects. 

“Ooh, we have a musician hiding among us,” she says. “What do you play?”

“Nothing.”

“Is it the kind of nothing that involves fingering, or blowing, or--”

“Isabela,” Aveline says, exasperated.

“Fingering, mostly,” Fenris replies, and Isabela laughs. Hawke stands and pulls her guitar case out from under the table, a flush creeping up her neck.

“You can finger a lot of things,” Isabela continues, her voice dropping as she leans over the table. “Can you be more specific?”

“Isabela!”

“Guitar and bass,” he says, and he’s back to searching for that elusive message in his drink.

Why didn't you tell me? Hawke wants to ask. Why did you tell her and not me? Because I didn’t want to pry? But the questions are quickly buried by thoughts of cozying up next to him, each of them strumming an instrument, and sweet Maker did he sing as well? The force of her own yearning sets her heart pounding in her chest, as if Isabela were inside her drumming wildly.

“Now you have to come upstairs and show us,” Isabela says.

“Only if you want to,” Hawke adds. Please, want to, she thinks.

“I’ll consider it,” he says.

#

When they’ve finished collecting their gear, they head up the stairs to the apartments over the bar. Fenris trails after them in silence, but Hawke can see him looking around warily, as if he’s expecting to be followed or caught in the middle of doing something naughty.

Isabela’s apartment is an eclectic collection of mismatched souvenirs from her travels all over Thedas: whorled seashells, a spyglass, a ship in a bottle, a pair of elaborately etched daggers, an ancient-looking book, and an entire cabinet lined with brightly painted shot glasses from every tourist trap known to man. A hat stand in one corner is festooned with practical and costume pieces, including one emblazoned with a skull and crossbones. Her furniture is worn and mismatched, her walls are covered in random artwork--originals, not prints--and the floor is littered with half-burned prayer candles waiting to be relit.

“Rum all around?” Isabela asks, wandering into her tiny kitchen. Merrill is already tending to the candles, and Aveline has dragged the pair of small amps they use for practice out from behind the couch, so she and Hawke can plug in. Fenris stands in the doorway, arms crossed.

“Water for me,” Aveline says.

“So, vodka then? It's the same color.”

Hawke slingshots a pair of red underwear off the couch toward Isabela, who catches them with a laugh and stuffs them into the back pocket of her tight jeans. 

“Can't imagine how those got there,” Isabela says.

“I assumed you were having sex and forgot about them,” Merrill says absently.

Hawke’s snicker dies as she glances at Fenris, whose eyes are on Isabela. She busies herself with her guitar, trying not to feel like something has slipped through her fingers when she hadn't even known she was holding it.

“Remember to keep the volume down,” Aveline tells her. “It's after hours.”

“I've told you before,” Isabela says, handing Hawke a shot glass. “The neighbors have heard much worse.”

Hawke knocks back her rum, exhaling burning fumes, then lays the glass on the coffee table and checks her tuning. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Isabela offer a shot to Fenris, which he takes and dispenses with just as quickly.

“I bet I can guess what color underwear you're wearing,” Isabela tells him.

“Can you now?” Fenris replies.

“I'd put ten silvers on it,” she says.

“And I suppose you'd have to check for yourself later, to be sure I hadn't cheated on the wager?”

“Of course. Unless you'd like to invite a few extra witnesses.”

It was bound to happen sooner or later, Hawke thinks. Isabela wasn't everyone’s type, but she was beautiful, and fun, and she didn't waste time playing games. As they said in Tevinter: she saw, she conquered, she came.

Hawke’s fingers slide up the neck of her guitar and form a chord, a pick materializing in her other hand from her case or pocket or bra; she's already forgotten where she got it, and then she is strumming softly, her eyes closed as she bends over her instrument.

Aveline picks up the progression quickly enough, and soon Merrill joins in, her keyboard set to a standard piano sound instead of something more esoteric. It's a simple arrangement, and Hawke loses herself to it quickly, hardly noticing when Isabela joins them on the cajón.

The song is slower than what they normally play, quieter, the kind of song that can kill a crowd’s buzz, but there's no crowd to worry about here. Hawke lets it flow through her like water, follows it like a river without wondering about its source or destination.

Eventually it reaches a crescendo, the four of them coming together with a weaving of melody and harmony that feels sweet and full, and one by one they drop out until only Hawke is left playing. She brings the song to a close with a few carefully spaced notes, then mutes them with her palm and bites her lip.

The apartment isn't warm, but Hawke is sweating, so she slips out of her leather jacket, tossing it onto the couch behind her without a thought. She's about to start a new song when she hears the whine and pop of an instrument being unplugged.

“That was quite enjoyable,” Aveline says. “I do have to leave, though.”

Hawke groans, and Isabela taps her cajón absently with one hand while making a rude gesture with the other.

“Creators, was that an hour already?” Merrill asks. “It felt like no time at all.”

“It wasn’t, but I know Hawke,” Aveline says. “If I don’t stop now, I’ll be here all night.” She winds her cable around her hand and elbow.

“Hawke’s stamina is legendary,” Isabela says, drawing out the last word suggestively.

Hawke grins. “Is that a challenge?”

“It is now.” Isabela looks up at Fenris, still standing in the doorway. “Care to join us, or would you rather keep watching?”

Hawke had almost forgotten he was there. Her neck burns; she blames the rum.

Fenris shrugs. “I have no instrument.”

“Here,” Hawke says. “You can borrow mine.” She pulls it over her head and holds it out to him. The look he gives her is one she can never read. It’s the face that earned him the nickname “Broody” from Varric, and it makes him a hell of a diamondback player.

Aveline pauses with her bass case half-locked. “I won't need mine again until Friday,” she says. “I can leave it here and pick it up then.”

“I promise I won't sell it for booze money,” Isabela says cheerfully.

“I wouldn't have expected you to, if you hadn't said anything.”

“Fenris?” Hawke rests the bottom of her guitar on the coffee table. “I can play bass if you'd like, or you can. Or you don't have to play anything,” she adds quickly. He might be terrible at it and embarrassed by the attention, and she doesn't want to pressure him either way.

“Bass is acceptable, if you're sure you don't mind,” he tells Aveline.

“Not at all,” the woman replies. “I'm only sorry to miss your debut here at the free brothel.”

Isabela sticks out her tongue. “Prude.”

“Trollop. Good night, everyone. Remember: be appropriate.” She shows herself out, a half-smile touching her normally somber lips.

“Well,” Isabela says. “Who wants another shot now that the fun police has left?”

Hawke slides her guitar strap back over her head and sits down. “Not for me, thanks. I don't want to end up passed out face-down on your rug again.”

Merrill smiles shyly. “I don't mind. It's a comfortable enough rug.”

“I'm more worried about what's been done on the--never mind.” Hawke stares into the flickering light of a candle as Isabela retrieves more rum from the kitchen. She's acutely aware that she's about to play with Fenris, and equally aware that it may be uncomfortable for either or both of them. Not everyone enjoys improvising songs, and not everyone has the knack for it.

Don't make it a big deal, she tells herself. Play. Have fun. That's the whole point of this, remember? Unless she wants to take Isabela up on her other offer…

The sound of Fenris tuning the bass pulls her out of her reverie. It’s more or less fine since Aveline had done the same earlier, but he gives her a questioning look and inclines his head toward her guitar. She obliges by playing the equivalent notes so they're in tune with each other as well. Her A string is a little flat, his D is a little sharp.

He can tune by ear, she thinks, hoping it's a good sign.

Isabela returns with three shots. “Health, wealth and money,” she toasts. “And enough time to enjoy it all.”

“Cheers,” Merrill says, sipping hers. Fenris and Isabela take theirs at the same time, knocking their empty glasses on the coffee table. Isabela grins, and a faint smirk softens Fenris around the eyes.

Hawke looks away and begins to play. 

Her chord progression is different from before, but the speed is similar--slow, almost meditative. She tries a few different strumming patterns, listless, unsatisfied with any of them. Relax, she admonishes herself. She hasn’t been this wound up in ages.

Merrill joins her, then Fenris, the two picking up threads of Hawke’s progression and weaving it into something more cohesive as Isabela sets a lazy beat.

It's not bad, especially for a first time. Hawke steals a glance at Fenris, whose eyes are closed. His hair is limned with gold from the light of the candles, his shoulders hard with tension. The bass rests between his legs, and she feels a sudden and irrational jealousy for an inanimate object.

Gradually, almost imperceptibly, Isabela speeds up the tempo. A smile touches Hawke’s lips; she can practically hear the woman grumbling, “Enough with this moody nonsense.”

She's happy to oblige.

Hawke’s strumming quickens. She starts working in more complex picked patterns, letting Merrill anchor the rhythm with jaunty chords. This is the pace she’s used to on-stage, bright and bold and furious as a back-alley brawl. The knot in her stomach loosens as she hits her stride at last.

A glance tells her Fenris has opened his eyes, but he's not looking at her; he's watching her hands, tracking her traipsing melody so he can play off it. His style is more aggressive than Aveline’s, more complex, which amuses Hawke because it’s the same way she plays bass. Guitar must be his first love, like hers.

The thought warms her more than the rum did.

The song takes shape. Here is a verse, and here is a chorus, and the pressure mounts as Hawke transitions back to the verse. She adds more flourishes, plays off a sweet little counterpoint from Fenris. Then it's back to the chorus, driving forward inexorably, and oh what's next is deliciously inevitable. Two more measures, one more…

Hawke licks her lips and plunges into a solo.

It's different from playing something she's rehearsed so many times she can do it without thinking. There are rules, yes, conventions and fundamentals, but they're suggestions rather than strictures, possibilities rather than prescriptions. They aren't anchors, they're wings, and Hawke is eager to fly.

Her fingers dance on the fretboard, her other hand picking notes from the strings quickly, so quickly, but not quickly enough. She begins to hammer them out with her fingertips instead, hunched over her guitar--when did she stand up?--her hips swaying to keep time as part of her listens to the keyboard, the bass, the cajón, their music like air currents holding her up while she dips and soars. She can't do this forever, she knows; she feels the climax building, sees the top of the peak she didn't even know she was scaling until now. Her hands slide farther down as the notes rise in pitch, higher, faster--

Hawke lets a single note cry out, long and loud, arching her back, her whole body taut with the sound. She rides it up and down with the whammy bar, holding it as long as she can before finally releasing it. She gives her heart a few beats to stabilize, then returns to the regular, soothing structure of the verse. 

One more refrain and Isabela signals the end, slowing down her taps and banging harder for emphasis. They follow the drummer’s lead, ending the song with a unified flourish that teases a giddy laugh from Hawke. Everyone sits in silence for a few moments, basking in the last fading echoes of the music they made from nothing but each other.

“Mm,” Isabela says. “Let’s do that again.”

But Fenris is moving, tearing the bass off like it’s burning his skin, though he places it carefully enough back in its case. “I’m sorry,” he says, brow furrowed. “I have to… I can’t…”

Before Hawke can say more than his name, the door closes behind him. The silence now is shocked rather than sated.

Isabela whistles. “That was a hell of a fuck and run,” she says.

“Oh dear, I hope he's alright,” Merrill murmurs.

Hawke is torn between going after him and giving him space. What is wrong with him? Was it the song? The drinks? Is he sober enough to get home safely? She thinks of the Highwaymen who went after him that first night, and worry overpowers restraint. Grabbing her jacket, she heads for the door.

“Hawke,” Isabela says. “If you catch him--”

“Yes?” Hawke asks.

“Make sure you find out what color his underwear are.”

Hawke flips Isabela the bird and leaves.

#

Hawke rushes out of Hanged Man, a breeze from the west setting the eponymous decoration to swinging with an ominous creak. Fenris is across the street, walking briskly, his hands clenched into fists.

“Hey, Fenris!” she calls.

He doesn’t stop, but he does slow down for a moment before resuming his previous pace. She catches up to him halfway up a hill, falling in beside him like he’s the leader in a forced march. He’s about her height, but her legs must be slightly shorter, because she finds herself taking extra steps to keep up.

They walk in silence until they reach the empty shopping district of Hightown. Then he turns on her, and she sees something in his narrowed green eyes that makes her take a step back.

“Fasta vass,” he growls. “What do you want?”

So many answers crowd into her mind at once that she’s left speechless. As usual, she settles on the worst option in a feeble attempt to put him at ease.

“A million sovereigns would be grand,” she says. “I used to want a pony when I was younger, but where would I keep one in my tiny apartment?”

“Did you follow me all this way to mock me?”

“I wasn’t… Of course not. I was worried about you.”

“I don’t need your pity.” He turns away and begins to walk again.

Anger bubbles up inside her like water in a kettle as she tails him. “Andraste’s flaming knickers, you're not one of the stray kittens Anders feeds. You’re my friend.”

He doesn’t stop, his voice rising in volume. “Do you make a habit of harassing all your friends who wish to be left alone?”

“Only when they wander through Lowtown drunk in the middle of the night.”

“You’ve never cared before.”

“I’ve always cared!” she hollers. “But you’ve never done it after--” She can’t bring herself to finish, because she hasn’t had time to process what it was like to play with him, how it was the same kind of magic she felt when she did it with her other friends. Except it wasn’t, it was something else, and if she examines it too closely, handles it too callously, it will collapse like a bubble made of ice.

She can’t look at him. She doesn’t want to see whatever emotion he’s wearing on his face. Or worse, nothing at all.

“I’m sorry,” she says quietly. “You’re right, of course. This was selfish of me.” She forces a laugh. “I hope Isabela hasn’t seduced Merrill in my absence. I left all my things in her apartment.”

A sharp pain lances through her head as something hits her just above her hairline. It bounces off and lands in the street: an empty tin can.

“Shut up, you two, or I’ll call the guard!” A window slams closed overhead.

Hawke stares incredulously at the projectile, then touches her scalp gingerly. Her fingers come away red. “Piss on a stick,” she says. With a scowl, she gets behind the can and kicks it toward the building she thinks it came from. It rebounds off the wall with a muted, unsatisfying clank.

“Are you injured?” Fenris asks. His tone is strained, impatient. He doesn’t really care, she thinks, he just wants to leave with a clear conscience.

“Only my pride,” she says. “It’s taken worse beatings before.”

He doesn’t respond, and she isn’t sure what more to say, so she turns away. She realizes suddenly that her family’s legendary home is on this block--yes, it must be, there’s the city hall off to the south, and the huge chantry cathedral to the west. It’s a long way back to the Hanged Man, and if she had any sense she’d be as worried for her own safety as she was for Fenris’s.

Hawke has never been accused of an abundance of sense.

She absently rubs her forehead with the back of her hand. She needs to wash the cut before it gets infected. She doesn’t want to wake Bethany, but she might have to if--

“You’re bleeding,” Fenris says.

“Head wounds are like Isabela,” she replies. “Excessively dramatic.” She starts to walk back toward the shops, then pauses, trying to remember a shortcut she took once that would put her near the foundries. She reaches for her phone to check a map and realizes she left it at Isabela’s, along with her wallet, so she has to go back the way she came or risk getting lost. Without a wallet, she can’t even cave and get a cab.

“Venhedis,” she hears behind her. “Hawke, stop.”

“I’m fine,” she says with a wave, realizing belatedly that her hand is smeared with blood.

“Festis bei umo canavarum. I have bandages at my--at the place where I am staying.”

She’s never been to his condo--not actually his, she remembers, whatever that means--and she finds she doesn’t want to go now. Not like this, she wants to say. She's not a stray cat, either.

What she does say is, “Can’t really bandage a scalp, but thanks for the offer.”

His diamondback face is firmly in place as he stares her down. “Paper towels, then. Are you going to bleed all the way back to Lowtown?”

Hawke could tell him that if he really cared, then he should know how she felt when she went running after him in the first place. She could leave him there and do precisely what he had done: walk alone in the dark from one end of Kirkwall to the other. But that's nug shit rationalizing of her own poor behavior, and she meant it when she apologized for not giving him space.

She's fucked things up thoroughly, and all she can do now is hope for the best.

“It would be a shame to ruin my jacket, I suppose,” she says, and is rewarded with a smile so fleeting she might have imagine it.

“If you're suggesting that jacket has no bloodstains on it already, I may be forced to call you a liar.”

“Far be it from me to force you to do anything.” She rubs a finger over the stitched place where she was sliced on the night they met. If that has healed, maybe this can, too.

#

He leads her south, then takes a turn eastward, then back north. She's reminded of Varric’s stories about the city being designed around its original slave population, with the intent to ensure no one could assemble and plot rebellion, or could be easily suppressed if they did. Certainly there are plenty of dead ends, she thinks, pun unfortunately intended.

They reach a tall, old building, the kind of place that reeks of sovereigns rabbited away in vaults to breed unchecked for eternity, spent only rarely and extravagantly. Fenris has never acted rich, though it wouldn't change her feelings about him if he was. Maybe he's worried it will, so he never wanted her to know.

He unlocks the front door and guides her to the elevators. His shoulders are tense again, and the last spark of her anger goes up in smoke. She should say something. She should keep her mouth shut. She's already said too much. She hasn't said enough.

Her nerves ping wildly as she steps out of the elevator. Fenris stops in front of a door and takes a breath.

“You can bring me paper towels out here,” Hawke says quickly. “I don't have to come in.”

He responds by unlocking the door and pushing it open. An alarm starts buzzing quietly, and he steps over to a panel and punches in a code that quiets the noise. Turning back to the door, he flips a light switch on the same wall.

“Come on,” he says, and she does.

The place is enormous, at least by her standards. There's a kitchen to the right, all fancy marble counters and modern wood cabinets. The floors are marble as well, white striated with gray. The living room ahead of her is decorated with sleek leather couches and acrylic tables, past which she can see a sliding door leading to a wide balcony. The view of the city beyond is beautiful.

What strikes her more than the opulence is how most of it is unbelievably damaged.

The couch is covered in long gashes, exposing their foamy innards. The tables are upended, cracked or even snapped in half in one case. The walls are covered in strange pink stains, like splashes of watercolor paint. The kitchen seems intact, though the trash is more full than her mother tolerates at home. She takes a step forward, then another, and hears a crunching sound, realizing the floor is littered with broken glass. 

How can he live like this? she wonders. Then, a sudden horrible thought: does he not live here alone? He’d never mentioned anyone, so she’d always assumed…

“The powder room is clean,” he says, as if reading some of her thoughts on her face. “Down the hall to the left, past the wine closet.”

There’s a wine closet, she thinks, half-dazed. Maker’s balls.

“Powder room” apparently meant bathroom without a shower. She hesitates, distraught at the thought of sullying the shimmering blue mosaic-tiled sink, but a glance at her blood-caked face in the mirror steels her resolve. She turns on the water--it flows out in a flat, wide line, not like a normal faucet--and leans forward, doing her best not to splash onto the floor. The cold stings at first, but the pain passes quickly.

Fenris appears behind her, holding a fluffy white towel that she regards incredulously, craning her neck to look up at him.

“You can’t be serious,” she says. “I’ll ruin it.”

“Good,” he replies. “I’ll have an excuse to burn it.”

Hawke doesn’t make a habit of destroying perfectly good linens, but the look on his face tells her not to argue. She takes the towel and dries herself, then presses it to her wound in the hopes that it will staunch the bleeding. If she needs stitches again, Bethany is going to give her so much shit.

She realizes he’s holding a bottle of wine in his other hand, by the neck, already open. He brings it to his lips and takes a long swig, then drops it again to his side. She leans against the sink, staring at the light switch; he leans against the wall, staring at the toilet, drinking. Occasionally their eyes meet and they look away again.

“It must have been a hell of a party out there,” she says, and immediately regrets it. Damn it, she tells herself, why can’t you keep your stupid mouth shut?

Fenris closes his eyes and takes another gulp of wine.

“I’m sorry,” Hawke says. “I shouldn’t be here. I can call a cab from the Chantry; it’s just up the street.” Shut up, she thinks, stop talking, stop it, stop. “Or if I could use your phone, I can--”

“This is not my home,” Fenris says. “It belongs to my… manager. Former manager, in Tevinter.”

“Manager?”

“I’m a musician, as you might have guessed.” His gaze shifts to the floor. “I did not wish to tell you, because then I might have been tempted to lie to you about everything else.”

“You don’t owe me any explanations,” she says, and she means it, no matter how brightly her curiosity is burning.

“You have never made me feel as if I did,” he says. “I have always been grateful for that.”

She isn’t sure how to reply, so she doesn’t. She senses something coiled inside him, ready to escape, so she waits. It isn’t easy for her, because she has questions, so many questions--

“His name is Danarius,” Fenris continues. “I thought he was incredible, at first. He found me on the streets of Minrathous, playing for spare change. Promised me more than I‘d ever dreamed, that I could take care of my sister so she wouldn’t die like my mother had. Bought me expensive clothes, took me to fancy parties.” He drinks again. “I didn’t realize until later that I’d signed away my life to him. He cheated me out of every copper I ever earned and told me it was for my own good. That I’d just waste it if he gave it to me. That he’d handle everything for me, buy me whatever I needed, so I didn’t have to worry about foolish things like money.”

Anger rekindles in her gut, but now it’s on his behalf. Her free hand curls into a fist.

“I thought he loved me,” Fenris says. “He would parade me in front of his associates whenever they visited. I was his little wolf, caught in the wild and brought to heel.” He gestured at himself. “He encouraged me to get these tattoos. Said they made me look dangerous. Alluring.”

“You didn’t need tattoos for that,” Hawke says, before she can stop herself, and winces. “Sorry.” She covers her mouth. And she’d been doing so well.

“I appreciate the compliment,” he says.

They stand in silence. Hawke puts as much pressure on her head as she can, sorry to stain the towel no matter what he says about burning it. It’s fluffier than anything she’s ever owned, and she’s possessed of a sudden desire to ask if she can keep it, blood and all. She isn’t sure whether that would upset him.

Without a word, Fenris turns away from her and throws the bottle toward the living room. She doesn’t see it hit, but she hears the crash, realizes where the stains on the wall came from, the mess on the floor.

“I must confess,” he says. “Doing that always gives me pleasure.”

He does look better, she decides, gazing at his profile. He seems calmer. More at peace. She thinks of how she feels after delivering a particularly heavy parcel from one end of the city to the other, how sometimes she carries a thing for so long that when it’s finally off her back, she almost feels like she could fly.

“I hope it was a poor vintage,” she says.

“It was delicious. And extremely expensive.” Fenris turns to her and raises an eyebrow. “Why, did you want some?” 

“Wine does pair well with head wounds.”

He chuckles, and Hawke represses a sudden urge to cry from relief at the sound.

“You know,” he says, “when I met you in the alienage, I was supposed to be meeting someone I thought was a friend, someone who could help me free myself from my contract.” His eyes narrow in anger. “Danarius thought to intimidate me into returning to him, using common thugs.”

“I’m glad I ruined his plans,” Hawke says. “And you did meet a friend. Just not the one you were expecting.”

Fenris nods. “You have been... a good friend.”

Only a friend, she thinks, disappointment like a stone in her stomach. “On average, maybe,” she says. “Hopefully I’ll get better with time, like that wine, and then you can throw me at a wall for pleasure.” Maker, did I just say that, she thinks. I must be concussed.

“I’ll consider it,” he says dryly.

That voice was going to be the death of her. That voice and those enormous green eyes.

Fenris’s phone rings. He pulls it out of his pocket, peering at the caller ID.

“Isabela,” he tells her, then answers it. “Hello? I’m fine. Yes, she’s here. That explains--Yes, I’m sure she would appreciate it. I’ll text it to you. Thank you.” He turns back to Hawke. “Isabela is coming to pick you up. She has your things.”

“I hope she’s sober enough to drive,” Hawke mutters. She pulls the towel away from her head to examine it, and is pleased by how little blood she finds there. No stitches after all, hopefully. Time will tell, she thinks, putting the towel back.

“We should wait downstairs,” Fenris says. “I’m afraid I have no seating to offer at the moment.”

“That’s fine. Sorry again for intruding.”

“You did not intrude. I offered.”

They exit and he turns on the alarm before locking the door behind him. As they walk back to the elevator, Hawke swallows a lump in her throat and asks, “Are you safe here?”

“Safe?” Fenris furrows his brow.

“Are you going to be arrested, or attacked? What if Danarius comes back?”

“Let him,” Fenris says, in the same tone that set her on edge earlier. “I do not fear him any longer. He can do no worse to me than he already has.”

He steps into the elevator and she follows, desperately hoping he’s right. If he isn’t…

“You know I have your back, right?” she says. “If anything happens. All you have to do is call me.”

“I… Yes. Thank you.” He smirks. “Although that will do me little good if you keep leaving your phone at Isabela’s.”

Hawke laughs, elbowing him in the arm. Together they step out of the elevator and walk into the night, to wait for whatever’s coming next.


	3. Surface Envy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "This is supposed to be fun. A new adventure with her friends. A possible step up on the long climb to fame and fortune through music. And yet she’s sunk into the pit again, so deep that sunlight is a memory, and all she can do is hope she climbs back out before she drags anyone else in after her."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdNgHnLJWgw

Throw me a rope, give me a leg  
I haven't seen daylight in what must be days  
I took the long way down, lost track of myself  
Confidence fell down the steepest of slopes  
But if you get me a line, lend me an oar  
I'll row you an ocean, I could do more  
I feel so much stronger, now that you're here  
We've got so much to do, let me make that clear

\--Sleater-Kinney, “Surface Envy”

 

After that night with Fenris, Hawke goes home and writes two solid pages of lyrics in her notebook.

They aren’t about him, per se. They’re about the perils of capitalism and fascism and corporate oligarchies, the ways in which the system is rigged to favor the unscrupulous, how some people hoard wealth like dragons and guard it just as fiercely. They’re about the plight of the working class, the dance of day job and side hustle, how her generation is forced to adapt and evolve beneath the long shadow of their parents’ and grandparents’ choices. They’re about Hightown and Darktown, shiny stores and black markets, aristocrats and wage slaves in an endless tug-of-war that would end with frayed rope and mud baths for everyone--or worse.

When she finishes pouring all of that out, she lets a few brief, bright thoughts about Fenris himself sit in the front of her mind, like glass floats drifting on a wine-dark sea, but the third page remains scrupulously blank.

#

A week later, after work and recording and work and practice and more work, Hawke looks at what she’d written and groans at how terrible it is, how trite and obvious and juvenile. She slides the notebook under her thin mattress and sits on it, bouncing a few times for good measure.

Bethany, dressing for her shift at the clinic, plumps her bottom lip in sympathy. “Do you want some ice cream later?” she asks. “I’ve heard sugar helps enhance creativity.”

“I’ll need a truckload to fix this nonsense,” Hawke says, giving her bed a meaningful thump. But the talk of ice cream sends her to the kitchen for breakfast, trailed by an exceedingly attentive mabari.

“You’ll be fine. You always are.”

Hawke pulls a leftover slice of pizza from the fridge and sniffs it. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Bethany follows her out of the bedroom. “You do this every time. You write something, you hate it, then you decide it’s not as bad as you thought, then you hate it more, then eventually you…” She makes a vague gesture with her hands. “I don’t know. Make it work somehow, and then it’s fine.”

“Am I that predictable?” She takes a bite. Bann sits at her feet, watching intently.

Bethany smiles. “Remember the time you threw your journal in the fireplace?”

“Maferath’s hairy ass.” She’d burned the crap out of her fingers trying to save it. Her mother was furious.

“And you know what helps you when you get like this?” Bethany asks.

A few possibilities flash through her mind, including expensive wine and large green eyes, but she knows what her sister means.

“Varric,” Hawke mutters. “I have to meet with him later about the album anyway. I’ll talk to him then.”

“Or let him talk to you, really. It’s his favorite hobby.” She catches Hawke in a one-armed hug. “Be safe, will you?”

“When am I not?” she replies around a mouthful of cold cheese.

Bethany pauses in the doorway, shuffling her feet nervously. “I'm going out after work. In case you come home and I'm not here.”

“Mm. Say hi to Anders for me.”

Hawke watches her sister leave, stifling a surge of jealousy. If anyone deserves happiness, it's Bethany, who’d always been the sweetness to complement Hawke’s sarcasm and Carver’s bitterness.

She takes a few more bites of the pizza before throwing half the crust to Bann and trashing the rest. 

#

The sun is a sliver on the horizon when Hawke returns from a delivery to the Wounded Coast, her legs burning from the long trip out of town on her bike. She rides straight to the studio, despite smelling like a nug warren, but she doesn’t want to be late. She’s had too much time to think today, and she’s ready for someone else to lead the conversation.

Varric waits for her outside, leaning against his convertible and wearing a smug smile to compliment his chest-baring silk shirt. He holds up a thin plastic case with a shiny disc inside.

“A little surprise for you,” he says.

Hawke stares at it. “Is that...?”

“It is. Close your mouth before you swallow a fly.”

All thoughts of Hawke’s writing troubles vanish. The album. It’s finished. Well, not completely--the mix for a couple of songs may need tweaking, since they only laid down the last of the bass tracks this week, but Sandal has been a genius so far and she trusts him.

It feels like they just started recording it yesterday. It feels like they’ve been working on it forever. She isn’t sure whether to scream or cry, or both.

Varric clears his throat. “Am I going to hold this shit all day?”

With a laugh, Hawke snatches it from his hand. 

#

The band meets at Isabela’s apartment that night to listen to the whole album, start to finish.

Aveline sits on the edge of the couch, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, face propped up on her hands; she looks more somber than usual, but Hawke assumes it's nerves. Merrill sits cross-legged on the rug, eyes closed. Isabela stands at the counter in the kitchen, taking swigs of rum directly from the bottle. Hawke perches on a rattan chair, hugging her knees to her chest.

The last note of the last song fades. Nobody speaks for a few minutes.

Isabela puts the bottle down with a clunk. “Ladies,” she says. “I will fuck each and every one of you right now. All at once, or you can take turns.”

“I'll pass,” Hawke says with a laugh. “But I appreciate the sentiment.”

Aveline sighs. “I forgot to take notes. Was anyone else taking notes?”

“Oh, were we meant to?” Merrill asks. “I thought we were just listening.”

“Fuck notes,” Isabela says. “It was amazing. It was like sex and more sex had sex with each other.”

“That doesn't even make sense,” Aveline says.

“It does, you're just too sober and sex-deprived to understand.”

Hawke stretches her legs and rises. “We can listen again later, more carefully. But before we do, I propose we undertake a vital task.”

They all stare at her, waiting.

“We’re having a party. Call absolutely everyone.”

Isabela whoops and immediately goes for her phone, while Merrill squeals in delight. 

Aveline, however, runs her hands over her face and leans back. “I can't,” she says softly.

Isabela makes a moue, but Hawke waves a hand. “You're right,” she says, pacing. “We shouldn’t rush this. We’ll plan a proper listening party, when we’re sure people will be available. BYOB. I can make little sandwiches and Merrill can make that weird thing that’s really good--”

“Spindleweed salad?” Merrill asks.

“That one.” Hawke presses a finger to her lips. “I should see if Varric is downstairs so we can figure out when merch will be ready. And then.” She pauses dramatically. “The tour.”

Isabela grins. “Yes! I can't wait to travel.”

“Oh, but don't you travel all the time?” Merrill furrows her brow.

“And I always love doing it, kitten. Wind in your hair, road rolling out in front of you, new places waiting to be discovered...”

Hawke notices Aveline frowning and staring at a point on the opposite wall. “Hey, Aveline, are you alright?”

“Yes.” Aveline looks away. “No. Sort of. I've been promoted.”

The other three women erupt into congratulations, then questions. When did it happen? Were they giving her a raise? Would she have her own office? Aveline suffers it quietly, her answers brief, and Hawke is the first to let her brain catch up with the situation.

“The promotion,” she says. “It means more responsibilities, doesn’t it? Longer hours? Less free time?”

Aveline nods, throwing an arm over her face.

Isabela figures it out next and groans. “Of all the nug-humping--Ugh! I don’t have enough rum for this.”

Merrill is last, her eyes finally widening with understanding. “Halam’shivanas,” she murmurs. 

Hawke lays a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “It’s what you’ve been working for,” she says. “It’s what you wanted, and you deserve it. We’re very proud of you.”

“I know,” Aveline replies. “But now you have to find a bassist for the tour, or--” 

The unspoken half of that sentence is too much for any of them to contemplate. They can’t afford to pay back the album costs, not even if Aveline shouldered most of the burden, which they would never let her do. But they can hardly afford to pay someone to play for them, either; Varric and Hawke planned everything down to the copper, more or less.

Hawke’s heart simultaneously falls into her stomach and climbs into her throat. The answer is obvious, of course, even as it’s impossible. Her face flushes thinking about it, and she feels like a traitor, a terrible friend, both for the speed with which the alternative occurred to her and the selfish cruelty it would require for her to act on it.

Isabela has no such filters. “What about Fenris?” she asks, running her forefinger around the lip of the bottle.

“No,” Hawke says.

“But he--”

“No. He can’t. He won’t.” She remembers the pain in his eyes when he ran out of the apartment, the rage-fueled mess he lives in. He never mentioned whether he played on stage or just in studios, but she can’t imagine he’d want to get anywhere near a spotlight in his state.

The few times she’s hung out with him since that night--asking him to tag along for a delivery, playing diamondback at the bar, even shopping for groceries once--she’s done her best not to talk about it, trying to make him feel comfortable. Normal. She thinks he’s been more relaxed, but maybe she’s seeing what she wants to see.

Aveline is staring at her, she realizes, the same stern look she gives teens when she catches them being naughty. The one that makes people want to talk, for some reason, despite all sense insisting they stay silent. 

Hawke is having none of it. She frowns at Aveline and shakes her head.

Isabela snorts. “I don't know what's going on with you two, but if you won't ask him, I will.”

“Isabela,” Hawke says, exasperated.

“Oh, perhaps Varric knows of someone?” Merrill asks.

Hawke forces a smile. “I'll find out. In the meantime, we’ll all listen to the album until we’re sick of it, and then I'll sit with Bodahn and Sandal and polish everything until they’re sick of me. Then we’ll party enough to make everyone else sick right along with us.”

Chuckles and murmurs of agreement reply. Aveline offers to take Merrill home so Hawke can talk to Varric, so they say their goodbyes and go their separate ways. Hawke has a feeling Isabela isn’t going to let things go with Fenris. Should she call him first to warn him? Let him know he didn't have to do anything he didn't want to? Maker, what if he wanted to--no. Don't even think it, she tells herself sternly.

Then again, was it her business to be his protector? He was a grown man, after all. He could deal with Isabela himself. That leads to other thoughts she doesn’t want to pursue, and that were equally none of her business.

Varric is out, so Hawke rides her bike home in the deepening dark, slowly, her shadow stretching out in front of her and then falling behind her over and over again as she pedals from one pool of light to the next.

She falls asleep before Bethany returns, and her notebook stays under her mattress.

#

A text awakens Hawke later: “Fenris says he’ll do it ;-)”

She turns to lie on her side, feeling as if her skin is on fire, staring at a crack in the wall until sleep overcomes her again. She dreams of Lothering, and Ostagar, and wakes in a pool of her own sweat, gasping for air as if she’d been drowning.

Bann whines, so she takes him for a walk in the pre-dawn darkness, the stars beginning to wink out one by one. She thinks of her father, wishing he were there to counsel her or make her laugh. Her mother often accuses her of being just like him, which is good or bad depending on context. They always had a similar sense of humor, a tendency to crack jokes when a situation got too serious, though at least her father had a better sense of propriety about it. They also shared a habit of falling into black depressions that left them moody and sharp as knives.

Hawke watches the sun rise and feels like her life is spreading out in front of her, the way the city does when she looks down from certain parts of Hightown. The way it did from Fenris’s balcony.

Enough, she tells herself. If he’s interested, he’s interested. If he’s not, he’s not. Get your shit together, woman.

Bann whuffs at her. She looks down and a laugh escapes her.

“Literally, get your shit together,” she says aloud. “Sweet merciful Maker, Bann, I’m never giving you pizza again.”

He cocks his head and lets his tongue loll out the side of his mouth, and she laughs again, pulling a plastic bag from her pocket.

#

Time seems to speed up, overflow like a river after a long, heavy rain.

Hawke works with Bodahn and Sandal to make minor changes to the mix, which is then sent to all relevant parties. Albums are burned. Shirts are printed. The band website, originally made by Merrill and Hawke and maintained sporadically, gets a redesign with store links. It even has a page with their tour schedule: Ostwick. Markham. Hercinia. Wycome. Ansberg. Starkhaven. Tantervale. Then back to Kirkwall, where it all started.

Varric sets them up with a warehouse space near the docks, one the Tethras family business isn’t currently using, and the band plays to empty shelves and wooden pallets. Much as it makes her feel like a traitor, Hawke is relieved that Fenris has replaced Aveline, because he’s able to practice more frequently and at all hours. He’s a quick learner, in part thanks to the recordings, and Aveline joins them when she can to help out. 

Hawke doesn’t know what Isabela said--or did--to get him on board in the first place. She doesn’t really want to know, and she has no right to ask. He's calmer about it than she expected, though, defiant even, like every song he plays is a fight he wins against his own personal enemy.

But she can’t shake her concerns about his feelings, and a few days before they leave, over drinks at the Hanged Man, Hawke finally gets up the nerve to ask Fenris if he’s sure about the tour. Not directly, of course.

“You can still back out, you know,” she says. “Once we cram you into that van, you’re stuck with us for weeks, farting and burping like a pack of wild mabari.”

He cracks a smile. “I enjoy playing with you,” he says.

Hawke takes a long swallow of ale to regain her composure. She knows he means the band, not just her, but damn his voice.

“We’ll have to get you a bandanna, then,” she says. “So you can cover your nose if we stop for Antivan food.”

He laughs, and it makes her insufferably smug for a few minutes.

She blinks and it’s time to pack, they’re leaving in the morning, she’s only got the one suitcase she brought from Lothering and pulling it out from under her bed weighs her down with a melancholy she can’t shake off. 

They were luckier than most refugees, having dual-citizenship as they did. So many people were turned away, hungry, homeless, afraid. Sent back to Ferelden to die, or struggling onward to Nevarra, Antiva, even Rivain. The war is over but she’ll always carry it with her, like this suitcase, the guilt and shame and sorrow tucked inside like worn clothes waiting to burst out.

With a snarl, Hawke pulls a pile of shirts from her drawer at random and throws them into the case, follows it up with jeans and underwear and socks. Isabela would probably give her grief over failing to properly plan her wardrobe, but she can’t muster up the energy to care.

Her mother appears in the doorway, takes a few hesitant steps into the room. “You’ll be safe?” the woman asks, worrying at a button on her sweater.

“Probably safer than here,” Hawke replies with a smile, kissing her mother’s forehead. “You’re sure you can keep Bethany in line while I’m gone?”

“Very funny.” 

Her mother smells of cherries and almonds. Hawke breathes it in as if she could store it for later, and wonders whether the older woman is doing the same with her.

While digging around for a belt, Hawke finds a red bandanna in one of her drawers. She remembers her conversation with Fenris and packs it; she may never have the chance to give it to him, but it amuses her to know it’s there.

After a short internal struggle, she pulls her notebook out from underneath her mattress and tosses it into her suitcase as well.

#

The band meets outside the Hanged Man before the sun has burned away the early morning fog. Varric is going with them because he says he needs to keep an eye on his investment, but Hawke suspects he just wants an excuse to get out of Kirkwall and do something fun. They pile their gear and luggage and boxes of merchandise into a rented van that smells musty and recently disinfected, and Isabela grumbles about not being allowed to drive.

“I told you, Rivaini: my credit card, my rules,” Varric replies. “Hawke drives until she needs a break.”

Hawke slept poorly again, so she’s running on fumes and espresso. She slides into the driver’s seat anyway, squinting her bleary eyes at the dashboard, then checking her mirrors.

Varric takes the passenger’s seat next to her and the other three slide onto the long bench behind. Isabela claims one window and Merrill the other, leaving Fenris to sit between them, arms crossed. 

Varric stops her as she reaches for the ignition. “Got a speech prepared for us before we embark, Hawke?”

“Do I look like the leader of this merry band of misfits?” she asks incredulously.

A chorus of groans and short laughs replies. Even Fenris smiles.

“Fine. Here’s your speech: buckle up, don’t leave trash in the van, and driver picks the music.”

She turns the key and the engine roars to life. A glance at the rearview mirror shows her silver-white hair, and her stomach twists.

Mabari shit in a bag, focus on the road, she tells herself. 

She queues up a playlist on her phone, shifts the van into drive, and eases into the pre-rush hour traffic. Within minutes she’s happily singing along to the music while Isabela drums against Varric’s seat, the door, and occasionally Fenris as Kirkwall recedes into the distance behind them.

#

The drive up the coast to Ostwick is scenic, if slow. Some parts of the highway only have two lanes, one each running east and west, and Hawke refuses to speed despite Isabela’s insistence that it’s perfectly safe. To their left, the Vinmark Mountains rise majestically in the distance; to their right, the Waking Sea crashes against the rocky coastline, seabirds wheeling overhead, dark specks against a bright blue sky. 

At some point, Merrill switches places with Fenris so she can see the water better, claiming to have had enough of mountains for a lifetime. She leans over Isabela constantly, excitedly pointing out interesting plants or fancy houses or ships rising and falling against the horizon. Isabela rests her arm on the seat behind Merrill, watching the elf in amusement, but she doesn’t offer to give up her window.

Varric spends most of his time writing, or engaging in esoteric business work on his fancy tablet, or answering texts, though he makes Hawke pull over once so he can wander around outside and take calls. She’s happy to get the fresh air, even if the sheer drop to the beach is higher than she finds comfortable. The salty wind ruffles her hair as she watches Merrill snap pictures with her phone--mostly of the scenery, but a couple of times, surreptitiously, of Isabela.

“Watch the cliff, Daisy,” Varric calls out. “Save the accidental deaths for the end of the trip; it’s more dramatically satisfying.”

“Oh, dear, I suppose I was a bit close to the edge,” Merrill says, peering down. “Maybe I should wait in the van.” 

Isabela laughs. “Don’t worry, kitten, I won’t let you fall.” Merrill blushes and offers a shy smile.

Fenris, for all his previous calm, takes off down the road, stopping close enough to hear a shout but far enough away to be alone. Hawke stops herself from going after him, much as she wants to; she knows how it is to need some space, especially when you’re crowded in somewhere for hours in a row. When it’s time to keep driving, she calls his name and waves him over, and he returns without comment.

#

Their first show together is at a place called Trevelyan’s Tavern. It’s a step up from The Hanged Man in that it has two extra beers on tap and someone to run the mixing board for the sound system. It smells about the same--like fried things and beer-soaked wood--which is strangely comforting to Hawke. There’s no stage, but an area near the back has been cleared of tables, and a curtain has been strung up along the wall to suggest there’s something behind it besides painted concrete.

Someone named Philliam is opening for them, a nice kid she found online while scoping out venues with Varric and Isabela. He wears thick black-rimmed glasses and a flannel shirt, and he mixes covers of old rock songs with his own original material, managing to sound bigger than a one-man show with liberal application of percussion on his guitar. He also seems to have his own posse of fans sitting in the front row of tables, some watching him with rapt attention, others apparently familiar enough to chat off and on through his set.

Hawke nurses a drink at the bar and listens, clapping when appropriate, even hooting and whistling once for a song she quite enjoyed. It was strange to be the headliner; she was used to playing alone, or opening for some other band touring through Kirkwall. Hopefully some of Philliam’s people would stay to watch instead of slipping out when he was finished.

Fenris sits next to her, but for once she’s barely aware of his presence, too caught up in the music and her own nerves. At some point the bar gets crowded enough that he gives up his seat and scoots closer, leaning against the counter with his arm behind her for balance. She rests her head on his shoulder without thinking, as she’s done with Aveline more times than she can count. He smells like cheap soap and his shoulder tenses when she touches him.

Hawke immediately pulls away, mouthing “sorry” at him. The back of her neck burns with embarrassment. She tries not to see it as an omen of what’s to come.

She watches the end of Philliam’s and congratulates him when it’s over. He’s nice, if a bit self-involved. She promises him a drink after she’s finished playing, wondering whether he’ll stay to collect.

It’s time to go on at last. She moves to retrieve Fenris from the bar but he’s already at her side, pulling Aveline’s bass out of its case and plugging in. His face is neutral except for a tiny wrinkle between his eyebrows. A ludicrous urge to rub it with her thumb presents itself, then passes quickly.

She thinks of the first time she saw him and grins, laying a hand on his arm. He looks up at her, and whatever he sees in her face teases a smile out of him as well.

Hawke sets up her guitar, Merrill her keyboard. Isabela sits behind her drum kit, lazily twirling her sticks between her long fingers. After a muttered count, they launch into a cover of a pop song that’s twice as hard as the original, only playing enough to ensure they sound fine and signal to the crowd that the show is about to begin. 

Before the smattering of applause dies down, they start their set, and Hawke throws herself into the music like a diver into the Waking Sea.

#

It’s a solid performance, with the kinds of mistakes Bethany always insists aren’t noticeable to anyone but the band members themselves. Hawke is half-surprised to see that Philliam stayed, so she buys him a drink as promised, and they chat briefly about their respective sets. He excuses himself soon after to smoke outside, leaving her to wander back to Varric at the merch table. The piles of shirts and albums don’t look much smaller than she remembers.

“Do me a favor, Hawke.” Varric motions for her to lean closer. “Get Rivaini over here to look sexy near the merch. Tell her I’ll let her run her fingers through my chest hair later.”

Hawke laughs. “I suppose she does have significant assets compared to some of us.”

“Hey, I’m not saying you don’t look sexy, too. You’re the kind of sexy people worship from afar because they don’t want to risk a broken nose.”

She gives him the finger and goes to find Isabela as requested. The bar continues to be surprisingly packed, no doubt due to its proximity to the Ostwick Circle Community College. It’s a riot of sound and smell that reminds her of home while also being foreign enough to set her teeth on edge. 

There’s no sign of the drummer in the crowd, so she heads outside to see if Isabela retreated to the van. Before Hawke gets there, the thought occurs to her that she doesn’t know where Fenris is, either. The van would be a convenient place for, well. Things. She doesn’t want to interrupt, so she resolves to approach cautiously.

Sure enough, there are suggestive sounds from within. Isabela isn’t known for being particularly quiet.

Hawke feels as if a trapdoor has opened beneath her.

It’s none of her business. None of her miserable, flaming, thrice-cursed business. Like Bethany and Anders, they deserve happiness.

She wants to punch someone, but no convenient targets present themselves. Heading back toward the entrance, she waves briefly at Philliam as he stands outside smoking with his posse of friends. He raises his cigarette in acknowledgement, and she considers asking him for one, despite not having smoked in years. The effort it takes to keep walking is substantial.

There’s a commotion at the door before she can get inside. A bouncer has appeared, a big Qunari with an advanced degree in looming, and she’s preventing a relatively short guy from entering. His clothes border on preppy, but the shaved head and stylized dragon tattoo on the back of his neck gives him away.

“No Darkspawn,” the Qunari says firmly.

At the word, Hawke’s lip curls into a snarl. 

Fucking Darkspawn. Every time you turned around, there they were, popping up like roaches--if roaches thought genocide was a reasonable approach to dealing with people they didn’t like. 

“I just want one drink,” the Darkspawn says. “One drink and I’ll leave.”

“Fuck off,” the Qunari replies, crossing her arms to show off her substantial muscles.

“One drink, that’s it.”

Hawke strolls up to stand next to the bouncer. “I’m sorry, I just heard the bartender say he’s all out of drinks,” she says coldly. “Rotten luck. Might as well move along.”

The Darkspawn smiles like he found a sovereign on the ground. “Fereldan, huh?” he asks. “I hear your new king is less squishy than the last one.”

“You’re going to hear my fist break your teeth if you don’t walk away, you miserable little shit. I’ve killed ogres twice your size on MRE crackers and a half hour of sleep.” Hawke was pissed, she knew, the sounds from the van still replaying in her head even as she tried not to let them bother her. The slightest excuse for a fight would give her no end of pleasure.

Whether it’s her tone of voice, her expression, or the suggestion that she’s a soldier, the Darkspawn raises his hands in mock surrender and retreats. Hawke is surprisingly disappointed, but the Qunari nudges her shoulder and offers a nod of thanks.

“He just wanted a drink,” says one of the girls with Philliam.

“You can’t let them in,” the Qunari replies. “You let one in, next thing you know, a dozen of their buddies show up and start picking fights.”

The girl scoffs. “Every time?”

“Every fucking time.”

Hawke wants to lecture the girl, but she isn’t in the mood, so she goes back inside and heads for the bar to wait until it’s time to leave. Nobody offers to buy her a drink, which is just as well, because it keeps her from doing something she might regret later.

#

They stay at a hostel that night, all five of them crammed into bunk beds in one room along with a pair of tourists from Antiva. There’s only one bathroom, too, so showering takes forever. Hawke lets everyone else go first, despite being so tired that her head throbs and her vision takes on an eerie twinkling quality at the edges whenever her eyes move. She hides in a corner of the tiny lobby, scribbling random snatches of lyrics in her notebook while the clerk on the night shift watches talk shows.

When she finally finishes bathing, Varric is working in bed, Fenris is asleep or pretending to be, and Isabela is letting Merrill brush her hair while the elf sings a soft lullaby. Hawke misses Bethany suddenly, so sharply it takes the breath out of her.

This is supposed to be fun. A new adventure with her friends. A possible step up on the long climb to fame and fortune through music. And yet she’s sunk into the pit again, so deep that sunlight is a memory, and all she can do is hope she climbs back out before she drags anyone else in after her.

Sleep comes to her slowly, the kind with no dreams, where she only knows she must have slept because time lurches forward while she stares at the inside of her eyelids.

#

Ostwick. Markham. Hercinia. Wycome. Ansberg. Starkhaven. Tantervale. Kirkwall.

One by one, the cities rise around them, then recede behind them. The list becomes a litany in Hawke’s mind, repeated to soothe herself as she drives them forward, leads them on day after day, north up the coast and then west along the base of the Vinmark Mountains. 

She repeats it when Varric asks her what’s wrong before bed on their second night, and it allows her to smile and reply, “What could be wrong? This mattress is easily twice as comfortable as mine back home.”

She repeats it when Isabela teases her about someone asking for Hawke’s autograph, then says, “Maybe I’ll start offering selfies, too, for tips. Or booze.”

She repeats it when Merrill wants to stop at yet another antique store in one of the small towns just off the highway. They get lost twice because Merrill has no sense of direction, but Varric intercedes each time with the GPS on his phone. “I’m storing up all this quaintness for later,” she says. “Maker knows the only quaint thing about Kirkwall is that Templar knight-captain with the curly hair.”

She repeats it when she catches Fenris looking at her in the rearview mirror, then turns up the music and sings along so loudly that her throat aches.

She repeats it after every show, when Fenris and Isabela disappear, and she avoids the van for at least a half hour, hovering near Varric at the merch table or nursing a drink at each respective bar.

#

Between Ansberg and Starkhaven, they stop at a gas station for Varric to return a call. Despite trying to give him privacy, Hawke hears half the conversation because Varric, normally smooth as Mackay’s Epic Single Malt, is practically shouting.

“What do you mean he’s gone, where is he? Don’t sass me, Cupcake, I’m not in the mood. Stop acting like whipped frosting, then. What happened?” He listens for a time, his expression getting stonier by the second. “Why didn’t she tell me about it? Point taken. So how did he figure out she was on to him? Did he take anything? How do you know? Maker’s balls, that was what, ten thousand sovereigns? Well, shit. What about the hard drives? Thank the Maker for modern technology. Give that accountant a raise and tell her to put together a report for me. I want to know exactly how much he embezzled, so I know how many times I’m going to punch him whenever I find him.”

Hawke approaches him after he hangs up. “If someone needs punching, I have two fists and a keen desire to use them.”

He chuckles. “If it comes to that, I’ll definitely call you. Turns out my brother has been stealing money from family companies for a while.”

“Flaming bastard! And then he ran?”

“Like a nug from a barbecue. Took all the cash in his office safe as well.”

“Do we need to go back to Kirkwall?” she asks.

Varric sighs and shakes his head. “There’s nothing I can do there that I can’t do from here. Might as well keep moving forward.”

Hawke watches him trudge back to the van and feels her dark mood clearing like a Lowtown fog in a stiff wind. Her own problems are petty compared to this, and now she has a mission: distract her manager--no, her friend--as much as possible until they get back to Kirkwall.

She slides into the driver’s seat and revs the engine. “Hey, Varric,” she says. “Isabela was telling me she had some ideas for your next serial.”

“Hawke, I know what you’re trying to do, but you don’t--”

“Two words.” Isabela leans forward, her voice low and lush. “Guard. Smut.”

Varric stills, then steeples his fingers. “Okay, Rivaini, I’m listening.”

Rain begins to beat against the roof of the van, but Hawke simply smiles and turns on the windshield wipers.

#

Starkhaven has the biggest venue they’ve played so far, pretentiously named Primeval Thaig, with a five-band show headlined by Rock Wraith. It’s underground, which makes unloading the drums tedious, since they’re not the only ones trying to use the service elevator. But there’s a real stage, and lights hanging from metal grids below the ceiling, and the bartender serves her a drink without asking her to open a tab.

Fenris joins her at the bar, and it’s just the two of them for a change. Varric is on the phone somewhere, and Isabela and Merrill went shopping at a nearby mall.

“Here for some wine?” Hawke asks, smirking.

Fenris chuckles. “This place could use redecorating, don't you think?”

She looks around at the bare black walls, stirring her whiskey sour with a tiny straw. “Your particular style wouldn’t show very well at the moment. Perhaps if we put up a nice floral wallpaper first. Or maybe cartoon nugs?”

“It can’t be too hideous to begin with. That takes away all the pleasure of ruining it.”

It’s her turn to laugh. “So naughty. Very well, you’ve convinced me. It’ll have to be gold brocade and merlot, for maximum effect.”

“I’ll drink to that,” he replies, and they tap glasses, grinning at each other.

Hawke feels a sudden urge well up inside her, to ask him about Isabela. She isn’t sure why he and the Rivaini are keeping their… activities hidden, but she wonders if it’s because he knows she has a crush on him, and he’s worried about hurting her feelings. Or being teased by Varric, or both. She knows it’s none of her business, but they’re friends, and she doesn’t want him to think they have to keep secrets from each other.

As lightly as she can manage, she says, “So, Isabela, hmm?”

He furrows his brow. “What about her?”

“Should we maybe have some kind of spy code for when you’re going to the van or whatever? ‘The queasy crow flies at midnight’ sort of thing?”

“Why would we need a code for that?”

She takes a sip of her drink to stall while she considers her words. “It’s cool. Subtle. Not that it matters to Isabela; she’d just as soon say ‘I’m going to the van for sex’ and leave it at that.” At his startled expression, she says, “Which is fine, mind you! Just not as fun as spy codes.”

Fenris carefully places his wine glass on the bar and crosses his arms. “You think I am sleeping with Isabela.”

“...and I take that to mean you’re not.”

“I’m not, no.” He puts the emphasis on the first word.

Hawke mentally replays the last week in her mind and, with a groan, gently bangs her forehead on the bar counter.

Maker’s balls, she was a fool. She’d been looking at everything through shit-colored glasses instead of paying attention to what was actually happening. Fenris wasn’t the only one who’d gone missing that day in Ostwick, and she’d assumed all the feminine noises she’d heard from the van were being made by Isabela.

Hawke turns her head, still resting on the wood, to look up at Fenris, whose tiny smile wants slapping. “If you tell them, I’ll die. You don’t want me to die, right? Because then you’ll have to get a new singer, and a new guitarist.”

“I will not tell them,” he says gently. Then his tone shifts to teasing. “Though if I did, perhaps I could be your replacement. I haven’t sung in some time.”

“I knew it!” She slaps his arm. “You’ve been holding out on me. As soon as we get back to Kirkwall, I’m dragging you to karaoke at the Rose.”

“The strip club? They have karaoke?”

“On Tuesdays.”

“Ah,” he says. “I only go on Fridays.”

She laughs, because they both know he’s been with her every Friday since he arrived in Kirkwall, and because she’s nearly giddy with relief.

“Wait,” she says. “Does Varric know?”

“Of course,” Fenris replies. “He’s the one who warned me to avoid the van after every show, for at least a half hour. And not to say anything to Merrill about the enormous hickey on her neck.”

#

The other bands arrive, set up, sound check. The audience starts to trickle in, sporting paper wristbands and varying degrees of enthusiasm. They’re playing third, which gives Hawke even more time than usual to stew in her own broth of nerves. 

Get a grip, she tells herself. She stands from her increasingly cramped spot at the bar to go to the bathroom, stopping at her gig bag to grab her makeup.

Isabela and Merrill are already vying for space in front of the single cracked wall mirror. Isabela always goes for smoky eyes and dark lips, while Merrill favors a pinkish-brown eyeshadow that complements her pale green eyes and facial tattoos. They nudge each other good-naturedly, never when it might actually impede their efforts, and their giggles put Hawke at ease almost instantly. She can’t believe she hadn’t realized what was going on between them; it seems so obvious now.

Hawke feels like a warrior preparing for battle whenever she does this before a show. She remembers having to cover her face with camouflage paint during basic training, remembers doing it again before Ostagar. It had made her feel powerful, like she could take down a horde of those shit-talking Darkspawn with her bare hands. Makeup wasn’t quite the same, but it was close.

On a whim, Hawke smears a line of lipstick across the bridge of her nose, red as blood. She smirks at her reflection and gives herself the finger.

Isabela chuckles and squeezes Hawke’s shoulder. “Let’s make them cry for their mothers.”

Hawke’s previous embarrassment, if not quite forgotten, is buried deep enough that it no longer matters. She’s going to sing and play like she’s fighting for her life, with her friends beside her, and she’s not going to stop until the last note dies.

#

When it’s their turn, they take the stage and plug in. The assembled crowd will likely grow as the time for the headliners approaches, but it’s more people than they’ve ever had before. Hawke can almost feel the dozens of eyes on her, and dozens more ignoring her in favor of shouting conversation over the loud filler music coming from the speakers.

“Ready when you are,” she says into the mic, and the lady in the booth gives her a thumbs up.

The house music fades out and they throw themselves into their sound check song. By the time they finish, she’s already starting to sweat from the bright lights.

“Hello, Starkhaven!” Hawke bellows, as Isabela sets the beat for the next song. “We are Friendly Rivalry. Make some fucking noise!”

She’s rewarded with cheers and whistling. Fenris begins the bass line, Merrill’s keyboard slides in seamlessly, and then Hawke’s guitar blazes across it as they come together like a perfect storm.

The audience starts to get into it. By the end of their second song, people are swaying, bobbing heads, dancing in place. A mosh pit starts in front, energetic but friendly; when a boy goes down, several people stop to help him up, then go back to throwing themselves at each other.

Hawke looks at each of her bandmates, and they’re all smiling. She feels invincible.

Then, during their fourth song, the Darkspawn show up.

She barely notices them except as bald heads edging their way to the front. Suddenly they’re in the mosh pit, a half dozen of them, pushing harder than they should. Hawke snarls in disgust.

The song ends, and she says, “Take it easy down there, children, or security will have to earn their paychecks.”

“Suck a mabari’s dick, Fereldan!” one of them shouts, and the rest laugh and slap him in congratulations.

“I’ll leave that to professionals like you, nug-humper,” she replies coolly. Whatever they say next is drowned out by the wail of her guitar as she starts their final song.

Despite her admonishment, security doesn’t come. The Darkspawn get more aggressive in the pit, throwing elbows and pinwheeling their arms and charging into each other like wild druffalo. Other people are trying to move away from them, but it’s gotten more crowded, making it hard to leave enough space to avoid being hit. And of course the Darkspawn know what they’re doing, so as the crowd struggles to back away, they move in closer.

Hawke’s trying to concentrate on the music, but her hands are on autopilot while the rest of her is watching the situation on the ground deteriorate. Then, it happens.

One of the Darkspawn elbows a girl in the face, and Hawke sees blood bloom across her nose. Someone steps in to protect her and three of the Darkspawn converge on that person, fists flying. Other people try to get away, as if there aren’t more of them than the assholes, as if they couldn’t all step in and end the fight quickly if they worked together. Instead, the girl with the broken nose is screaming, and her protector is dragged to the ground and viciously kicked.

Hawke slips her guitar over her head, lays it down and leaps off the stage.

She reaches the first Darkspawn in seconds, striking one side of his neck as she jabs him in the forehead on the other side. His eyes roll up into his head and he collapses, but she doesn’t wait for him to fall, instead moving immediately to the next one. She grabs that one by the collar and sweeps his leg, throwing him hard to the ground.

Now she has the attention of the other four, who converge on her wearing almost identical sharp-toothed grins. One throws a punch that she deflects, opening him up to a backhand that staggers him. Another circles around and grabs her from behind, so she stomps his foot, slides her legs apart and hammers her fist into his groin, then throws him over her hip and punches him in the face.

The other two never make it to her, because Fenris has one of them in a choke hold, and Isabela has broken one of her drumsticks on the other and is menacing him with the jagged wood.

Just as she’s ready to congratulate herself for making the world a better place, one enemy at a time, she realizes one of them has slipped away and climbed up onto the stage. He’s not after Merrill, who is holding up her mace like a shield. No, in some ways it’s much, much worse.

Time seems to slow as he raises her guitar--her father’s guitar--and with a shout, brings it crashing down onto the stage.

A cool rage falls over Hawke as the pieces of her most treasured possession fly in all directions. She releases the Darkspawn she was holding and stalks toward the stage, rolling her right shoulder as she smiles mirthlessly at her target. She’s dimly aware that Merrill is screaming in Elvish, and that someone else is shouting her name, but she ignores them. She only has eyes for the howling fool in front of her.

Now, of course, security finally arrives. A pair of off-duty guards like Aveline rush past her, climbing the stage and subduing the Darkspawn, who offers no resistance. All he does is smile at Hawke, all teeth, and before she can reach him, he’s hauled away.

Behind her, she barely hears the other Darkspawn being apprehended over the sound of the blood rushing through her ears. She climbs onto the stage and looks down at the remains of her instrument, as if she could magically fix it with the force of her will alone. She isn’t sure how long she stands there before gentle hands are touching her, leading her away--upstairs, outside, murmuring something she can’t understand.

In the distance, a siren wails like a lonely guitar, its mournful solo echoing in the moonless night.


End file.
